Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County, where Houston is located, over its guaranteed income program aimed at helping thousands of impoverished households in the county.
Paxton maintains that the program, called ‘Uplift Harris,’ which will provide needy families with $500 a month for 18 months, violates the Texas Constitution.
More than 1,900 eligible individuals and families were selected from the county’s ten poorest ZIP codes in February, and the first payment is scheduled for the end of April.
Now that the attorney general calls the program illegal, the program could stop just weeks before the first payment is implemented.
County leaders have since criticized Paxton, describing his decision as “surprising, shocking and disheartening.”
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton sued Harris County, where Houston is located, over its guaranteed income program aimed at helping thousands of impoverished households in the county.
Paxton maintains that the program, called ‘Uplift Harris,’ which will provide needy families with $500 a month for 18 months, violates the Texas Constitution.
The controversial program approved by county commissioners last year allocated $20.5 million of American Rescue Plan funds and selected registrants through a lottery.
Paxton criticized the program in his lawsuit, claiming the funds were specifically intended to be used for COVID-19 relief efforts.
‘There is no such thing as free money, especially in Texas. The Texas Constitution expressly prohibits donating public funds to benefit individuals – a common-sense protection to prevent cronyism and ensure that public funds benefit all citizens,” Paxton’s lawsuit states,” the document reads.
The lawsuit also considers the program a “socialist experiment by Lina Hidalgo and progressive Democrats.”
County leaders have since taken to social media to express their disappointment, as they are expected to issue a press release about the lawsuit on Wednesday.
Commissioner Rodney Ellis wrote in X: ‘This is not about constitutionality. It’s about maintaining a system that favors billionaires and starves working families.
County Attorney Christian D. Menefee agreed, writing, “This is nothing more than an attack on local government and an attempt to make headlines.”
“I will vigorously defend the county and this program in court,” he added, saying the county will continue to move forward with the program until a court order blocks it.
He said khou11:’It’s incredibly surprising, shocking and disheartening. More than 1,900 families here in Harris County were scheduled to receive $500 a month to help them deal with economic issues here in our county.
“But instead, due to the actions of a group of politicians in Austin, these people are now going to be put on hold,” he added.
County Attorney Christian D. Menefee said, “This is nothing more than an attack on local government and an attempt to make headlines.”
More than 82,000 applications were submitted for the program, and the lottery system eventually narrowed the number to 1,928, according to Menefee.
A 2023 Kindergarten Survey shows that more than 775 percent of respondents support the idea of ​​a universal basic income for low-income working adults.
But the program was met with backlash from conservatives after its passage in June last year.
State Sen. Paul Bettencourt celebrated Paxton’s appointment to the court Tuesday, while calling the guaranteed income program “lottery socialism” in an X post.
“I call it ‘lottery socialism,’ and I’m glad to see that the Attorney General’s Office is taking this seriously to the point of not only responding to my request for an opinion, but also filing a lawsuit against County County’s ‘Uplift’ program! Harris!” he wrote.
‘AG is right; “This violates the ‘donation cause’ of the Texas Constitution and employs a random lottery rather than rational classification,” she added.
In a statement announcing the donation, Paxton said the lottery-based donation violates the state constitution “because the selection of recipients is inherently arbitrary.”
“Taxpayer money should be spent lawfully and used to promote the public interest, not simply redistributed without accountability or reasonable expectation of overall benefit,” he said.